


A Road Diverged

by DreamsAtDusk



Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAtDusk/pseuds/DreamsAtDusk
Summary: Ghost-children and memories.  In the train graveyard of Midgar's slums, Aerith remembers the past and makes a decision about the future.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	A Road Diverged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whitedandelions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitedandelions/gifts).



Crawling, unfurling, blooming like flowers sped to growth a thousand times faster than natural: child-like scrawls luminesce across the wall. Bright white, glowing lavender, teasing words. In her mind's eye, the sight grows broader yet, spilling colour and figures and meaning. In a building well above their heads, her memory is writ large upon a grey surface in the Shinra building.

Aerith feels her breath go short and hides it behind a tremulous half-smile. “‘Come on,’ huh? Well…that’s inviting.”

*

 _I’m reeeeady!_

*

She is not supposed to be sad. She knows that. She is a Cetra, as her mother i—was. Life and death and rebirth are a never-ending cycle upon the Planet and it is a blessing to be a part of it. Ifalna is not _gone_ , she has rejoined the Lifestream in its purest form.

Aerith knows this. 

But she is also seven years old and knows even more the sight of her mother slumped against filthy cement. Of the lack of a soft smile, soft hands, that had been the heart of her world all her short life. The Lifestream may pulse and run beneath Aerith’s every step and she may tell Elmyra she is not sad, but…

*

_Come get me!_

*

“Found you.” She says it because it feels right and even as the words emerge, Aerith experiences a frission underneath her skin. _Knows_ it was right, that somehow these ghosts are also children and they want to play as any child does. She senses their longing like it is her own and cannot bear to let her new friends attack.

They’ve waited so long, these children, to be found. 

* 

_I’m right here…._

*

Aerith had played hide and seek in the Shinra building, contorting herself into hiding spots in the paltry offerings of she and her mother’s ‘suite’. Her only companion in it was a boy who’s mother watched after her while Ifalna was…away. They were allowed nothing but what fell between those cold, drab walls and so they made a different game of it. Make the other laugh when they found you, if you could. 

Laugh, and do not think think of other things. Not of bandages on pale arms, nor how increasingly weary her mother was.

But playing in the slums is different. It is endless, it seems to her then, metal sky sheltering every possible place one could run to and hide. And she _can_ ; there is nothing to stop her and no one to forbid it. She runs and runs and conceals herself with glee. 

But run too far and the others may not find you at all, as she learns that first time. She calls out to the others at last, and still they do not come. There is no one and…she has never been alone. Not in her entire life, never ever. Not like this. 

And though she never admits it to Elmyra or anyone else, in that moment, Aerith curls upon the pavement and cries for her mother. 

*

Tifa gazes in awe as sparks alight in the air above the train graveyard, like tiny stars detonating in mako hues. Even Cloud’s expression has broken from the iron grip he so often holds it in, fringed with wonder.

The children are finally free. It nearly overwhelms her, for even here in Midgar, beneath its great steel sky, Aerith can _feel_ it: the Lifestream sings as a broken cycle is mended. 

Animals, people, plants: they die and return to the Planet. To fight against this is to fight against the natural order, to fight against what it means to be Cetra. But, she thinks, as her gaze tracks up and up, that does not mean all fighting is wrong. It does not mean standing by to let suffering reign. Everyone dies someday.

But it need not be today. 

They race time to the base of the Sector Seven pillar and the breath that had gone short in Aerith’s chest hours ago swells deeply through her lungs as she…she decides. 

“Cloud! Tifa! At the base of the pillar, there’s a control panel.” The words spill out as her empty hand shapes the thing, paints a target’s size. She can hear Barrett’s voice—she has never met Barrett Wallace and never seen his own hand do what hers does now—leaden with grief as he describes what happened (has not happened). 

“You need to disable it - do whatever you have to. Don’t let the Turks get to it!”

And for as short time as they have known her, the two nevertheless look at the flower girl and hear her voice gone urgent in a way they never have, and they nod. They run, boots clanging up the stairs.

Aerith too turns and runs, to where Marlene is—to where Tseng of the Turks will be—and knows a hope fierce and bright, bright as ghost-children released to freedom.

To die is not to be gone. But to live and laugh and not be alone: that too is sacred.

**Author's Note:**

> The details about hide and seek in the Shinra building came from the 'Picturing the Past' short story in _Final Fantasy VII Remake: World Preview_.


End file.
